


In the Harsh Light of the Morning Sun

by classics_above_classics



Series: Alice Dorothy and Stories Set Elsewhere [12]
Category: Elsewhere University (Webcomic)
Genre: Drabble-Length Fic, Gen, Monologuing, Prologue, Revenge, part one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-14 17:21:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19277914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/classics_above_classics/pseuds/classics_above_classics
Summary: Lyric-Weaver enters the realm of Faerie.(The girl Lento has not yet been found.)





	In the Harsh Light of the Morning Sun

**Author's Note:**

> Alright! So! I've been trying to post more, and I wanted to write something from Lyric-Weaver's perspective too, but I'm not entirely sure how to make this all one 2000-word-long update, so I've made a decision! There'll be a sort of mini-arc spread out over four or five updates depicting Lyric-Weaver's search. This is the introduction. I hope it turns out as well as I imagined.
> 
> Also, on another note, does anyone know AO3's policy about posting original works, and then publishing them later? I've been meaning to post one of my WIPs on here, but I'd like to publish it when I'm done, and I'm not sure if there's a rule saying I can't. If anyone knows, please tell me in the comments!

The land of Faerie looks smaller now than it ever seemed before.

This is the fault of Elsewhere, Lyric-Weaver thinks, the fault of Elsewhere and its rolling, open grounds and the life blooming bright within it. The university- perhaps even the rest of the human world as well- seems to thrive in a way the fairy courts do not, ever-shifting and ever-changing in a way that makes everything seem so endless and unforgettable. They will never admit it. But they think it anyway, in the quiet sanctuary of their mind.

The land of Faerie looks smaller now, and perhaps it is this that keeps them from fatigue as they search for the _insolent, unthinking,_ indefinably _cocky_ little girl who’d dared to curse them.

They do not know why they cannot find her. But they _will_ find her. And they will make her regret ever disappearing when they do.

They enter first through the court of Summer, through the bright green of familiar leaves and the brighter sun above. The Summer lands are vast, hilly areas, grass and flowers and trees in full bloom, without much cover to hide in and with much to hide from. It is instinct to start their search from above, their human glamour blown away in the brisk wind and their leaves catching the gusts and letting them glide above.

There is something different about the land of Faerie, something that makes it nearly unmistakeable in comparison to human lands. Lyric-Weaver’s home is not as weighty, as heavy. It is light, light as air, like a slow, still breeze barely touching the skin, not nearly as odd and loping as the human world is. The world of humans is heavy and fast, a constant thumping beat in deep tones practically bursting with iron.

So it is instinct to search first for the human within this land. Not the human girl, but whatever here is unmistakeably human. Lyric-Weaver searches for the deep bass line of humanity, and they find nearly a thousand different beating hearts. Some of them are weak, almost drowned out by fey air- those are humans under Debts, then, brought here by what they owe. Some rhythms follow the sure, meandering tone of fairies- those humans, then, who have sold or lost their Names, now made to march to someone else’s beat. Some, a precious, rare few, are still their own.

The girl Lento had a surer beat, had a slower, slightly lighter rhythm than the people around her. Lyric-Weaver seeks that out now.

Throughout every mile of the Summer lands that they can touch, they cannot find it.

That, above all else, is infuriating. They want so strongly to find her. They want to make her pay, to tear rightful retribution into every inch of her flesh. They want her to _bleed._

She is not bleeding yet.

The fury that is spiking bright within them comes to a head. Lyric-Weaver- _not Lyric-Weaver anymore, they are storms in the summer, they are the painful, sharp stab of thorns and pointed leaves in the wind_ \- the fae who is called Lyric-Weaver _searches_. They want to find her. _They want to find her._ It is wrong, wrong, so ungodly wrong, that they cannot.

Not in Summer, then. Perhaps in another realm?

But the changeling who had switched them was Summer, through and through. They could not possibly have traded Lento into some other realm. There was no Winter about them, no Spring or Autumn even, just the bright burst of late Summer when the leaves started to die and the air began to nip cold against skin. They were late Summer, barely Summer, and they could not have given the little girl anything but Summer with the weakness of their magic.

So where was she?

Wherever she was hiding, it did not matter. Lyric-Weaver would find her. They would always find her.


End file.
